EnviroSim Releases BioWin 5.0

February 1st, 2016

EnviroSim Associates is pleased to announce the release of BioWin 5.0. Building on the successful history of the BioWin line, BioWin 5.0 continues to provide rigorous mathematical models to simulate operations in wastewater treatment plants.

BioWin 5.0 contains many exciting new updates – the main focus areas of this BioWin release are Energy and Operating Costs. BioWin 5.0 tracks power requirements for a number of pre-defined categories, including Blower Power, Mixing Power, Mechanical Power, Pumping Power, Heating Power, Surface aeration Power, Solid Liquid Separation/Disinfection Power, and Heating Ventilation and Cooling (HVAC) Power. These categories can then be easily displayed in pre-defined tables and charts.

Aeration is often the largest consumer of power in a wastewater treatment plant. BioWin allows you to specify whether an aerated element is part of a group supplied by a common blower. You can define as many air supply groups as you like. BioWin will then calculate the total air requirement for each zone, and the power required to deliver that air flow. The blower power calculations account for a number of important aeration system parameters, including:

Blower inlet air conditions (temperature and relative humidity)

Blower efficiency (which can be set up to vary with air flow)

Total pressure loss through the air delivery system (e.g. piping and valves)

Pressure loss across the diffusers (which can be set up to vary with air flow)

Power requirements to pump various flows for a process flowsheet are tracked via a new pump element in BioWin. You can enter the static head, pipe length and inside diameter, information on the pump efficiency (i.e. whether it is constant or varies with flow), and the pipe characteristics used for calculation of total dynamic head (e.g. pipe roughness and minor loss coefficients). BioWin will even account for the impact of high solids concentrations on a pumped stream’s viscosity if desired.

BioWin 5.0 calculates the power required to heat anaerobic digesters and thermal hydrolysis units. To calculate a power requirement for digester heating, BioWin considers the temperature at which the digester is operated, the temperature of the incoming sludge stream, boiler efficiency, and daily heat loss. BioWin can also evaluate the impacts of using the biogas generated in an anaerobic digester in a combined heat / power (CHP) engine. You can specify the fate of the energy in terms of power, useable heat, and engine exhaust / waste heat. You can also opt to use the CHP heat to assist the digester heating boiler, thereby offsetting the digester heating power requirements. Finally, you can select to use the generated power on-site (and sell any excess back to the grid at a user-definable price) or to sell all of the generated power back to the grid at a user-definable price.

Electricity costs are an important consideration in any operating cost analysis, and BioWin makes it easy to input and account for complex factors such as varying daily rate structures for different seasons and peak demand charges. Chemical costs are tracked in BioWin on a global basis for consumables such as methanol or metal salts on a cost per unit volume basis. Also, you have the option to include individual elements from your flowsheet in the overall project cost tracking by checking or un-checking the option to include that element on its Costs tab. A similar interface is offered for each sludge output element on your flowsheet, to allow for the tracking of sludge disposal costs.

A number of other user enhancements have been made, including:

Aeration parameters alpha and beta can be varied with time. You can use this option to fine-tune calibration of BioWin’s aeration model. Small chart buttons next to the alpha/beta input areas can be used to rapidly plot a time series plot of these parameters.

Diffuser parameters are now globally applied to all bioreactors by default (although they can still be localized if desired). There is now a Diffuser tab under Project > Parameters > Aeration/Mass transfer… that can be used to easily set up the same diffuser characteristics across all bioreactors from one interface.

The diffuser parameters can now be quickly toggled between values representative of fine or coarse bubble diffusers, using “Set example fine bubble diffusers” or “Set example coarse bubble diffusers” buttons.

BioWin has new default fine bubble diffuser parameters that are more representative of current diffuser materials and performance.

Parameter temperature correction factors are now highlighted in red if they have been changed from default values.

Right-clicking on any pattern input to BioWin (e.g. flow, RAS) now offers two options: Copy (which copies the pattern without headings and can be used to copy a pattern from one place to another within BioWin), and Copy all (which copies the pattern with headings and can be used to copy a pattern from BioWin into a Word, PowerPoint, or Excel table).

Right-click menu for adding a chart contains short-cuts for adding time series and current value series.

A more comprehensive description of the upgrade may be found in a “What’s New” document for BioWin 5.0 in PDF format. These will help to get you started in BioWin 5.0; more comprehensive information is provided in the user manual, which contains two new chapters devoted to Energy and Costs.

The upgrade to 5.0 will not affect older BioWin versions (BioWin 4.1 and earlier) which are separate applications. This means that users can keep their older copies of BioWin.

BioWin Updater will not automatically upgrade BioWin 4.1 to BioWin 5.0. You MUST run the full installation from the link provided. Thereafter the BioWin Updater will always be checking that your files are up to date.

We are emailing the registered contact for specific BioWin serial number(s). If an organization has multiple copies or users of BioWin, we would be pleased if the registered contact can advise other users of this new version and these upgrade instructions.

Lease Customers Lease customers can now upgrade to BioWin 5.0; releases and upgrades are included in the annual lease and distributed electronically. Instructions on how to electronically upgrade to BioWin 5.0 can be found here.

Purchase Customers Purchase customers who purchased after December 1, 2014 will be emailed instructions on how to electronically upgrade to BioWin 5.0 free of charge. If you have not received your upgrade email, please contact us. Customers who purchased BioWin prior to December 1, 2014 may order an upgrade here.

Academic Licenses Academic Licenses can now be upgraded to BioWin 5.0; releases and upgrades are included in the annually renewed license and distributed electronically. Instructions on how to electronically upgrade to BioWin 5.0 can be found here.